Don't Eat the Plastic

Publisher: Green Writers Press

Little Alligator is waking up from a peaceful slumber and goes through his morning routine of brushing his teeth, combing his hair, showering and stretching his body before he is off to get his big breakfast to start off his day. As he begins his journey, he encounters a trashed environment with all kinds of plastic pollution! The little alligator almost chokes on a plastic drinking bottle, a single-use plastic bag lands on his head as he is swimming deep in the water, a large worn-out car tire gets stuck on his waist! He escapes the water and sees a yellow bird with its beak held tightly closed by a plastic juice bottle cap, a duck with soda can rings squeezed around its neck, and a turtle with a plastic grocery bag stuck in his mouth! He helps these animals to get free and in return they become a group that shares an experience that bonds them forever as friends. Together they make sure the environment is clean and that no other animals will ever suffer from plastic pollution again!

Dara Herman Zierlein is an artist, author, art educator and environmentalist. She has taught art at Public Schools in NYC, Massachusetts for over twenty years, and as an exhibiting artist. She is currently illustrating for The Rumpus. Dara is a political artist and continuously using her art to advocate awareness in the world. Her paintings are of current issues focusing on social justice, human and animal rights, women and equal rights, and plastic pollution. Dara’s large watercolor paintings, writings and collaborations have been published internationally, Mom Egg Review, Resist Vol 2, Grab Back, NYC, 1Million Women, Australia, The Earth Issue, London, and Demeter Press, Canada. Dara has been interviewed on several themes focusing on motherhood, climate change, and recently on a podcast advocating for a plastic-free environment with the Valley Advocate newspaper. When Dara is not painting, writing, exhibiting, teaching, creating posters, marching, illustrating and working, . . . she is at home in Northampton, MA with her husband, three cats, two dogs, and their teenage son, entangled in the life of being an artist.

Peter O. Zierlein is a German native. His client list includes The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation and international publications like Berliner Zeitung, Spiegel, Stern, Die Zeit, Le Monde Diplomatique and many others.
poz* is the artist's tag and signature of illustrator and sculptor. poz*’s art is used for illustrations, posters, patterns, installations, zines, postcards, greeting cards, stencils, public art, murals and recently was turned into giant sculptural aluminum wall art. The Guardian featured Zierlein’s illustration, "Nevertheless She Persisted," in a recent article about political posters in the Trump era.
Zierlein’s poster, "Freedom of Speech," is his visual commentary and contribution to "Reimagining the Four Freedoms," an exhibition with the Norman Rockwell Museum that will travel internationally until 2020, and was recently featured on Sunday Morning CBS. Peter, and his wife Dara, live with their teenage son in Northampton, Massachusetts, and the family has one major bugaboo: they are trying to live without single use plastic items with varying success.